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Water Boiling Test

My little iCan made from a 3 lbs Costco coffee can boiled 1.75 liters of water in 42 minutes this afternoon. Ambient temp was 47 [8.33C]. This was done in 5 batches averaging 350 ml each. A very clean burn. Some soot at the start of each batch when the water was cold. Just a soon as the water in the cup warmed up a bit, the soot stopped.

Of course I also made some biochar as well.

Fuel was a good quality wood pellet. Cost of fuel: about 17 cents assuming pellets at $230 per ton. They can be bought for a good deal less, but I am using a higher number to be safe.

Cost per liter boiled: ~ 7.4 cents, allowing 4 cents as the value of the biochar captured at the rate of 17.5% of the dry weight of the fuel.

A super low-cost, blue-flame rice husk gas stove was recently developed in Indonesia to provide households with an affordable clean-burning cooking device using rice husks as fuel.

Within the 3 years of development on rice husk gasifier stove, PT Minang Jordanindo Approtech has finally come up with the super low-cost, blue-flame rice husk gas stove carrying a selling price of US$10 to 15, which is very much cheaper as compared with the previous model with a selling price of US$20. With this development, consumers don’t need to amortize for the stove, as what is currently practiced in villages in Indonesia, for them to acquire a unit of the stove in order for them to save money on fuel. Moreover, this stove is now made available to end users at a low cost, freeing the distributors from the task of devising financing schemes just to make the technology affordable to the local households.

As shown, the stove consists of only few parts. It was designed and made so simple to maximize the use of materials and to simplify the production using locally available resources. This stove model has the following basic parts: (a) the casing is made of tin can and can be bought at a very low price from a Can Factory; (b) the reactor can be subcontracted from a sheet metal manufacturer as well as the stove cover
and the burner; (c) the fan, which uses DC 12 volt, 2 watt supplies the required air to gasify rice husks. The flame coming out of the burner is bluish in color, which indicates a very clean gas. It has low black carbon emission of about 50 ug/m3 and below. The CO2 emission is about 0.6 kg CO2 per kg rice husks.

Fifty two high energy participants attended Stove Camp this year at Colgan’s Island, camping near the river, making and testing stoves, and listening to Fred’s Big Band harmonize so beautifully. Fred and his volunteers cooked breakfast every morning and dinners at nighttime parties on Rocket and TLUD institutional stoves.

Nick Salmons from International Lifeline Fund made a very successful Haitian charcoal stove that was voted “Best in Class” by his peers!

Stove Camp provides a venue for a gathered scientific community to advance knowledge of biomass cook stoves. Participants made new stoves and tested them daily for fuel use and emissions. Every morning the test data was shared and new stoves were constructed.

This year, a great deal of progress was made on charcoal stoves for Haiti. Camp participants, some of whom have worked in Haiti,designed a two-hour Water Boiling Test for Haiti, which uses a Haiti pot
and mimics a typical cooking task, cooking rice and beans. Charcoal stoves were constructed that used less fuel and produced less carbon monoxide compared to traditional Haitian stoves.

See the attached Stoves Camp Report for details of the tests, the interesting findings about the optimum charcoal to use for each stove, and pictures of the stoves tested.

Stove: Sampanda stove. Produced by the [Samuchit Enviro Tech Pvt Ltd](http://www.samuchit.com/) in India.
Test: A water boiling test (time to boil 2.5 litres of water, in a pan without a lid)
Location: The Iron Workshop, Siem Reap. A well ventilated building – 2 surrounding walls, and a roof. Wind conditions were low, but blustery at times.

1. INTRODUCTION: EVALUATION OBJECTIVES
Around the world, conflict and natural disasters have displaced millions of people. Displaced populations fleeing to settlement camps and seeking safety in host villages often put great stress on natural resources, leading to environmental degradation and conflict with local populations. One of the greatest needs of people affected by crisis, be they displaced, settled, or on the move, is firewood or some other type of fuel to cook their food, heat their homes, and treat water for drinking and food preparation. The risks endured (especially by women and children) collecting scarce wood resources constitute some of the most challenging and serious protection concerns both in IDP camps and in villages where conflict over resources is high.